Leeeaaaan pickings this year. No news this. Enough to drive a person to the unimaginable, the full Moon!
Well, I'll claim some semblance of sanity with a sketch of a 98% illuminated Moon, .
That's what it was a couple of nights ago, and there were two particular features that persuaded me to sketch the Moon at this phase. One was the irregular circumferance produced by the profile of the craters, mountians and depressions along the entire limb of the Moon. The other was the thin cresent of the terminator.
I did hesitate as I had no idea how long this sketch would take. But a clear night and the whole weekend to recover, I just went for it. Some two hours later and I was done and ready to turn in.
Object: 98% illuminated Moon
Scope: C8, 8" SCT
Gear: 35mm Masuyama, 57X, 2 piggybacked polarising filters
Date: 9th March 2012
Location: Sydney, Oz
Materials: Pastels and charcoal on A4 size black paper
Time: 2hrs.
My first serious sketch since I was a 9 yr old with a 60mm Tasco. Hopefully the first of many.
Not game to sketch "live" yet, this was done from a photo I took on March 31st with my C11. I'd like to get all sophisticated with technique and media in the future, but as a gentle re-introduction, this one was just a 2B pencil on watercolour paper.
Of course I started with my favourite region, Plato and Vallis Alpes.
wow ivan,
nice sketch especially for your first moon attempt your detail and shadow casting is spot on...well done!!!!
iv'e not attempted the moon as yet working up to it....
wow ivan,
nice sketch especially for your first moon attempt your detail and shadow casting is spot on...well done!!!!
iv'e not attempted the moon as yet working up to it....
how long did it take ??
Thanks Mozzie, I'm trying to concentrate on getting the shadows realistic. I've got some charcoal pencils to try next.
Mate, good sketch. Good idea to work from a photo to get the juices running. No time pressures, comfortable, and no dew. You can practice with different media and techniques that way too. I do it myself.
2B is a good pencil to start with. Try even softer grades, and even Chinagraph style pencils. These in particular are just BLACK, not the metallic grey of graphite. No sheen either. Bit of learning with them as they are less forgiving than graphite, but you won't look at graphite pencil in the same way once you've used these babies with the Moon.
Charcoal is also very good. More technique sensitive, but even more forgiving than graphite. Charcoal comes in black and white. White pastel pencils are probably a better pencil than the white charcoal. You can use these with a blending stump to blend out the tooth of the paper if you like to work with its texture to your advantage.
Thank you Paddy, it's nice to get encouragement when you sort of "put yourself out there".
Quote:
Originally Posted by mental4astro
Hey Ivan,
Still got that sketch from when you were 9?
Mate, good sketch. Good idea to work from a photo to get the juices running. No time pressures, comfortable, and no dew. You can practice with different media and techniques that way too. I do it myself.
..
Charcoal is also very good. More technique sensitive, but even more forgiving than graphite. Charcoal comes in black and white. White pastel pencils are probably a better pencil than the white charcoal. You can use these with a blending stump to blend out the tooth of the paper if you like to work with its texture to your advantage.
Mental.
Thanks for the tips Alexander. I don't still have those old sketches (there were some watercolours too), but never mind. I'll be keeping these, hopefully to track progress.
This was the first time I have used a blending stump, and I think it is a technique I will seek to improve with.
I'm going to try charcoal pencils next. I have three hardnesses. I'm already considering my next target. Maybe a close up of Petavius, if I can get an image with the lighting right? It's pretty close to the limb.
This is my first attempt at sketching with charcoal pencils. It's very different from graphite pencil, so there's a lot of technique for me to learn. A lot more messy, but I like the way it can be smudged for background, and the black is just so much blacker than graphite.
This is Rima Ariadaeus at the top, with Agrippa the large crater to the lower left and Ritter on the middle far right. I sketched from an image I took last night with my C6 SCT.
The sketch took about 2 1/2 hours to complete. I only used the "hard" and "soft" pencils. So far I'm enjoying my "quiet time" sketching. This may become a Sunday evening routine.
Groovy, Ivan. A lot happening there. Lovely details you've got.
Yep, charcoal is a very different beast. What I enjoy too is you don't need to totally smudge/blend the texture out, rather you can use the paper's texture to your advantage to give the sketch some lift.
You can also use a fixative to help control the "messiness". Hairspray is all that's needed, and far cheaper than the stuff sold in art stores. Much the same thing too. You need to learn how to spray it on too. Too much at once and you can lose a lot of your detail. You can spray as you go too if you like, but you'll need to let the thing dry for a couple of moments or you'll find the surface sticky.
No need to forget your graphite either. A good hard one like H6 is great for laying down faint outlines as you start to compose your sketch.
Nice work Ivan, I've been rigorously doing my hand exercises and hope to return to sketching soon, I know what you mean about the nervousness of putting your sketches out in the public eye, especially when there is such great work here. I don't think you have any worries though, they look great. Have a very 1950s feel to them for some reason, I like how bold they are.
Maybe the thread title should be changed, I keep thinking it is an invitation to an event, rather than a thread of Sketches of the moon.
A Lunar dagger, aka The Straight Wall, and Rima Birt
Thought I’d share this latest lunar sketch of mine. It was done a few weeks ago of the striking feature The Straight Wall.
I’ve seen this feature countless times since I pointed my first telescope at the Moon some 30 years ago. The Wall seems to be in a relatively featureless section of the Moon as it sits in Mare Nubium. This time, however, I noticed a few details that made me exclaim “WOW” all over again with the Wall. The orientation this time in the eyepiece saw its southern end at the top of my field of view. This end of the escarpment has a small mountain complex that makes it look like the handle and guard of a dagger, with the Wall as the blade.
Seeing wasn’t the best, but I also managed to spy out a tiny crater at the northern end of the Wall. Some research on it leads me to believe it is between 3 and 4km in diameter. Always astounds me to believe that such a tiny feature in the eyepiece is actually so big on the Moon. Much smaller features are visible, but conditions need to be better. Best I’ve been able to identify is in the half kilometre mark as the width of various rilles. One of those, despite the prevailing conditions, I did manage to see right next to the Wall, siting just west of it, Rima Birt. The crater Birt is the largish crater just west of the “blade’s” centre, and the rille heads north from it.
In the full sketch image the Rima Birt is difficult to see, which is why I added a close up photo of the sketch. Surprises me how neat the “tiny” gash came up! I am guessing that because Rima Birt is an extended feature that I was able to see it, while other features of the same width eluded detection.
Mare Nubium is not a featureless as I thought after all, !
Cheers,
Alex
Scope: Celestron C8, 8" SCT
Gear: 9mm TMB Planetary Type II, 222X
Date: 31st March, 2012
Location: Sydney, Oz
Media: White and grey pastels, black charcoal and white ink on A4 size black paper
Duration: approx. 2hrs
Circle diameter: 16cm
The shading of the surface is so realistic. I notice you favour white on black, is this for technical reasons, or just what you like better?
Also, I'm wondering, for the small black features, do you get this by leaving the paper blank, or do you put down white and then erase it, or do you use black charcoal?
I did a bit of a study of my next target last night, hopefully I'll get the time to do something this Sunday.
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and the sketches are fantastic, great work guys. Will be checking here more often 
!
